Winter Sunshine
I attended the funeral service for the 34-year-old son of one of my childhood friends this past weekend. He had died due to a rare cancer of the blood. Meanwhile, a new baby son was born to one of my son’s former classmates. He has lost a baby son within his first year of birth due to a rare cancer of the eye two years ago. Life is short and unpredictable. I also saw the film “Till on the plane coming back from Hong Kong before the funeral. Life can be cruel and filled with injustice. Ajith Fernando, a Christian leader in Sri Lanka, and an expert on the role of suffering in our life with God, wrote, “It is not possible to know real joy unless we also associate it with one of the indispensable features of life—suffering and frustration. The happiest people in the world are not those who have no suffering, but those who are not afraid of suffering—those who know that they can experience what one writer calls ‘winter sunshine.’
Skye Jethani wrote, “The prevailing view within American consumerism, including the Christian variety, is that suffering is an anomaly to be avoided whenever possible, or numbed by chemical or psychological distractions when avoidance fails. By denying the reality and normalcy of suffering, these false gospels offer no redemptive vision of pain. Instead, they burden those who suffer even further with the message that their suffering is the result of a weak faith. After all, if Christian faith exists to alleviate your pain but your pain persists, then either Christianity is to blame, or your faith is.”
As I have written before, the world is a fallen world because of humanity’s desire to be our own gods and we are separated from a deep and continuing relationship or fellowship with God. How else can we explain the lynching of a 14-year-old boy simply because he was considered being disrespectful? The baseline of life is therefore full of suffering, injustice and evil.
It is only with a strong faith that we can face pain, disappointment, and a future filled with unknowns. We need a strong faith and hope that the new heaven, new earth, and the New Jerusalem will come. It is important for us to put all the sufferings into perspective and look forward to when we can spend eternity with God.
At UVC, we continue to give praise to God regarding all the projects in the pipeline. The team continues to be healthy, motivated, and joyful at our daily huddle. During my upcoming absence while I shall be traveling around the world, Mr. David Scheidler, one of our most dedicated patron supporters, will be conducting our daily huddle and he has already created a spreadsheet to keep track of all the various projects. It is such a blessing that UVC is surrounded and supported by patrons that will donate both their time and financial resources.
Finally, it is with great gratitude that our entire Fong family, all thirty of us, will be in Crotone, Italy, for the wedding of one of my nieces next month. Afterward, we shall all go to Venice for our annual family reunion. The various families will have different travel plans around Europe, but we shall all gather together for Crotone and Venice. Our family’s commitment is to be present for life-changing events like this wedding plus our reunions! May the Holy Spirit keep us and guide us to glorify God’s name in all our motivations and in everything that we do. Amen.